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The burden of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, including mother-to-child transmission of HIV, disproportionately affects low- and middle-income countries, in particular the countries of Southern Africa. [2] The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 1.3 million women and girls living with HIV become pregnant each year. [3]
Programs to prevent the vertical transmission of HIV (from mothers to children) can reduce rates of transmission by 92–99%. [ 84 ] [ 142 ] This primarily involves the use of a combination of antiviral medications during pregnancy and after birth in the infant, and potentially includes bottle feeding rather than breastfeeding .
Although prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) programs have been implemented across different regions, their success in resource-constrained settings is still widely debated upon. [9] In 2008, the majority of sub-Saharan Africa as a whole had an estimate of 430,000 HIV infections among children under the age of 15. [9]
Programs to prevent the transmission of HIV from mothers to children can reduce rates of transmission by 92–99%. [ 47 ] [ 57 ] This primarily involves the use of a combination of antivirals during pregnancy and after birth in the infant but also potentially include bottle feeding rather than breastfeeding .
HIV is commonly transmitted via unprotected sexual activity, blood transfusions, hypodermic needles, and from mother to child. Upon acquisition of the virus, the virus replicates inside and kills T helper cells, which are required for almost all adaptive immune responses.
It is important to work towards eliminating Mother-to-child transmission of HIV-1 in developing nations. Due to a lack of testing, a shortage in antenatal therapies and through the feeding of contaminated breast milk, 590,000 infants born in developing countries are infected with HIV-1 per year. [45]
Furthermore, the PARTNER study, [43] which ran from 2010 to 2014, enrolled 1166 serodiscordant couples (where one partner is HIV positive and the other is negative) in a study that found that the estimated rate of transmission through any condomless sex with the HIV-positive partner taking ART with an HIV load less than 200 copies/ml was zero.
HIV is carried in body fluids and is spread by sexual activity. It can also be spread by contact with infected blood, breastfeeding, childbirth, and from mother to child during pregnancy. [73] When HIV is at its most advanced stage, an individual is said to have AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). [74]